After a three-year investigation, the Metropolitan Police have concluded that their initial suspicions of foul play were unfounded in the case of Gareth Williams, a 31-year-old intelligence agent whose naked body was found in his bathtub inside a padlocked bag.

Although a spokesman acknowledged that some people—like the coroner—had drawn what seemed to be the "logical inference" that someone else was involved, he said that based on all the evidence, or actually the lack of it, police had decided that the death was "probably an accident" and were closing the case.

Williams, described as a "math genius," was a communications officer at GCHQ, the UK's equivalent of the NSA—"equivalent" in terms of its respect for the law as well as its function. See, e.g., "Leaked memos reveal GCHQ efforts to keep mass surveillance secret," The Guardian (Oct. 25, 2013) (quoting memos expressing concern about a "public debate which might lead to legal challenges"). He had been "secunded" to the Secret Intelligence Service, often known as "MI6," at the time of his death, however. Because MI6 handles primarily foreign intelligence (MI5 is the domestic agency), it works closely with GCHQ, as you would expect.

After Williams had failed to show up at work for a week, an officer found his body in the tub inside a fully zipped-up bag, the zippers of which had been locked with a padlock. None of his DNA was found on the lock and his prints were not found on the edge of the bathtub. No drugs or alcohol were found in his system. There were some traces of DNA in the flat from which "it had not been possible to gain full DNA profiles," but no conclusive evidence that third parties had been present. There was some evidence that Williams may have engaged in certain bondage practices—he once had to call for help after tying himself to a bed—and police apparently believe this might explain why he might have sealed himself in a duffel bag.

Still, there was that nagging issue as to how he might have locked the bag from the inside.

Turns out the problem is locking yourself in, although you wouldn't think it'd take 300 attempts to be sure of that. "You can't access the lock from the inside without damaging the bag, so it cannot be padlocked from the inside," he said. "Even Harry Houdini wouldn't have managed it."

Houdini could not be reached for comment.

The coroner concluded that Williams had been "unlawfully killed" by a person or persons unknown, and his body then put inside the bag after his death. But after another year of investigation—and an unspecified level of "co-operation" from MI6—it seems that a small thing like absolute physical impossibility has not deterred the police from concluding that Williams managed to do this himself. In fact, the spokesman said he was satisfied it was "theoretically possible" that Williams had locked himself inside the bag, although the report did not explain why. Maybe the 301st time is the charm?

I'm sure this sequence is coincidental

"Now at the end of our investigation," the spokesman said, "based on the evidence, or where we have been unable to find positive evidence, we believe that it is a more probable conclusion that there was no other person present when Gareth died." Well, "more probable" than what? If the only other hypothesis was that "Voldemort did it," I would agree. Otherwise I think the only conclusion you can draw from the lack of evidence is that you can't draw any conclusions at all.

Here's another update to a story previously (and repeatedly) covered here: the Missouri Supreme Court is considering whether the Kansas City Royals can be held liable because its lion-like mascot, Sluggerrr, threw a hot dog into somebody's eye. Goofy as the facts are, the court's decision may set an important precedent.

The story so far:

John Coomer says he was enjoying a game in 2009 when Sluggerrr, who had at least put down the air cannon sometimes used for this purpose (seen in this frankly somewhat disturbing image) and was tossing them by hand, somehow managed to toss a hot dog behind his back and into Coomer's eye with enough force to detach a retina. See "Dog-Flinging Mascot Blamed for Eye Injury," Lowering the Bar (Feb. 24, 2010).

The Royals moved for summary judgment based on the "assumption-of-risk doctrine," which in the baseball context means that, for example, a fan hit by a foul ball can't sue because that risk is inherent in the game. The court denied the motion because it found that even if hot-dog flinging had become a customary part of the game, as the Royals argued, there was an issue of fact as to whether Sluggerrr flung negligently. See "Court: Baseball Fan Did Not Assume Risk Associated With Hot Dog Toss" (Feb. 10, 2010).

For whatever reason, that particular Sluggerrr did not return after the 2009 season, and reports said the new incarnation would receive more comprehensive training at a "mascot boot camp" run by the guy who was the original "Phillie Phanatic." See "New Royals Mascot Reportedly Training to Avoid Further Incidents"(Feb. 26, 2010).

The case went to trial, and in March 2011 a jury that had been instructed on assumption of risk found in favor of the team. On appeal, the plaintiff argued that instruction should not have been given, and the Missouri Court of Appeals agreed with him. See "Bad News for Dog-Flinging Mascots" (Jan. 16, 2013) (noting court's holding that the doctrine did not apply because "the risk of being hit in the face by a hot dog is not a well-known incidental risk of attending a baseball game"). The Royals appealed.

So that's how a case involving a guy in a freaky-anthropomorphic-lion suit throwing hot dogs at people got to the Missouri Supreme Court. That court heard oral argument on September 11 (the briefs and an mp3 of the argument are available here).

Coomer primarily argues that the assumption-of-risk doctrine doesn't apply because "the risk that Sluggerrr would negligently throw a hotdog [sic] that would strike a business invitee is not a risk inherent to the game of baseball." (Both parties still insist on writing "hot dog" as one word, and both parties are still wrong.)

The Royals, though, phrase the question as whether "the risk of being struck by a thrown hotdog is an inherent risk of the Hotdog Toss" (emphasis added), which they say has become "an integral part" of a Royals baseball game. Their brief notes that the "Hotdog Toss" has occurred at every one of the 800 home games the Royals have played since 2000 and that fans have come to "love and expect" it. Considering that from 1995 to 2012 the Royals had exactly one winning season, it is not too hard to believe that the "Hotdog Toss" did become very important to their fans. But is it—and are other potentially risky things that teams and their mascots do—really "integral"?

I personally think the Missouri Supreme Court is going to affirm, ruling in the plaintiff's favor on the grounds that at least these kinds of mascot antics are not an inherent part of the sport. This would mean the case would be sent back for another trial in which the jury would not be instructed on the doctrine.

It's one thing to say the doctrine protects a sport, because like most sports, baseball has a detailed set of rules. (The exception of course is soccer, where people just run around and kick at things, as far as I can tell.) The existence of those rules make it more likely that a court will be able to tell if necessary what is and isn't an inherent part of the activity. But I'm pretty sure there is no mascot rulebook, so that these cases would be pretty fact-intensive and so more suited for a jury. This wouldn't mean mascots must go, just that juries would have to determine whether they were negligent based on particular facts.

It might mean that teams would decide to get rid of things like mascot-fired air cannons rather than take the liability risk, but you know what? That would not be the end of the world.

You'll be glad to know that she has apparently decided not to charge individuals for using the energy emitted by her sun, only companies that use it without her authorization. This is good news for individuals everywhere, especially given that, according to her, she has been fending off legal challenges from other people who also claim to own the hydrogen-fusing G2-class star at the center of our system. Who knows what they might charge? One is apparently a Romanian man who she mocked for not knowing the law. She also claims to have actually been sued by another Spaniard who claimed he owned the entire universe (of which the Sun is allegedly a part), a suit in which she says she prevailed but I'm not buying that until I see some documents.

I'm also not buying any plots of "solar land" from her, although she's letting them go for just 1 euro per square meter. (You don't need to rush, because there are plenty to go around.)

Although you'd think that owning the sun would provide a sufficient revenue stream, Duran says she has diversified. "I also own the Tarzan shout," she says. (Another priceless item that was just sitting around waiting for someone to claim it.) She's selling el grito de Tarzan too, although exactly what she is selling in that regard was not entirely clear to me. Either her own recording of it, or a license to make your own, I assume.

Anyway, if you happen to absorb any solar energy this weekend, you might drop Angeles a line to say thanks.

As usual, Ken pulls no punches (including in his headlines). He analyzes the affidavit that was used to justify the search warrant (itself an interesting read for different reasons) that was used to justify the repeated anal intrusions, and concludes:

It really comes down to three things: (1) subjective officer impressions that Eckert looked nervous, (2) a dog alerting on his [car] seat, and (3) an unnamed cop making an unspecific claim that he had previously hidden drugs in his anus.

Those hardly add up to probable cause, at least given that there was no corroboration for the anonymous "tip," he points out.

One thing I will add about that: the assistant DA who approved the warrant is a defendant, and in his answer to the complaint he says he doesn't know who told the officers that Eckert was "known in Hidalgo County to carry drugs in his anus," and so denies that allegation. But he admits that Eckert was in fact "known in Hidalgo County to carry drugs in his anus." He doesn't say where he obtained this knowledge of what was known about the anus in question, though.

Anyway, you should read the post, which is an excellent analysis of the case (based on what we know so far) and of why, exactly, it is so terrifying. Beyond the obvious, that is.

In general the KBO News report summarized it correctly, but there are some additional facts alleged here (in addition to more horrible details of what the police allegedly put him through). These are just the allegations in the complaint, remember, although according to KBO the medical records do confirm the plaintiff's allegations about the procedures done.

First, the complaint also alleges claims based on a different incident last year, when the plaintiff was stopped in his home county (Hidalgo) for having a cracked windshield. Because he "looked nervous," other officers were called and a drug-sniffing dog brought in. No drugs were found.

Second, the more recent stop in Luna County allegedly was quite a team event, involving officers from multiple jurisdictions and possibly a separate drug task force. According to the complaint, the officer who stopped the plaintiff hadn't actually seen the traffic violation, he got a call about it from another officer. Since the violation was failure to yield at a stop sign, why wouldn't the officer who saw it make the stop himself? We don't know yet.

Third, here are the facts that allegedly justified the warrant (still looking for the affidavit itself):

Eckert was ordered out of the car, and that's when the alleged butt-clenching was noticed. Specifically, it says the officers claimed his "posture was erect and he kept his legs together," which is not exactly the same thing. (Yes, I just tried it.)

At that point a sniffer dog was brought in—which turned out, oddly enough, to be the same dog from the 2012 stop. It supposedly "alerted" to the seat of Eckert's car.

The third piece of "evidence," apparently, was that officers from Hidalgo County—which is not where the stop took place—told the first group that Eckert was "known in Hidalgo County to insert drugs into his anal cavity." "Known" by whom? Learned how? How and why did these officers get involved in a traffic stop in a different county? All good questions.

The complaint also alleges that the affidavit was defective in other ways, saying for one thing that the law requires planned medical procedures to be specifically listed (it cites a 5th Circuit case and this would seem to follow from the Fourth Amendment's specificity requirement), and they weren't.

Fourth, the complaint alleges the plaintiff was held for 15 hours. The stop was sometime before 2 p.m., and he was not released until 5 a.m. the next day, after being probed for several of those hours.

Let's say police stop someone they know to be a major drug dealer, previously convicted, maybe even a "kingpin." As far as I know there is no evidence Eckert is such a person, nor do I think the officers believed he was, just because if I were a drug kingpin I sure as hell wouldn't be carrying the drugs in my butt. You hire someone else to do that. But let's say they stop someone who is a real bad guy. Or they even have a tip that he's got drugs in the car, and they've been trying to get him for years.

It wouldn't matter. The Constitution and laws have to apply regardless of who the defendant is or else they don't do the rest of us any good. And we don't know, maybe these cops just didn't like the guy. Maybe he's just the wrong race or likes the wrong sports team or slept with somebody's wife. Whatever the reason, they (allegedly) picked up a guy on a pretext and talked a couple of doctors into searching his bowels all night long. Think about that one for a few minutes, if you can stand it.

Then consider whether the "War on Drugs" and its even creepier pal the "War on Terror," which have consistently eroded the rules that are supposed to protect us from this kind of thing, are really worthwhile.

I know what I think, so I'll just be over here practicing how to stand upright in a very relaxed position.

Update: KOB News now says it has found another person with a very similar story: traffic stop, same dog, same medical center, similar probing, same result (nothing). Also, although searches with dogs are often tainted by signals the dogs get from their handlers, KOB says this particular dog has not been certified to sniff in New Mexico since 2011.

Why not, you ask? Because it may be interpreted as probable cause to conduct an anal-cavity search.

Or six.

According to this KOB News report, police in Deming, New Mexico, and some doctors they convinced to help them, conducted no fewer than six manual searches of David Eckert's anus in the hours after they stopped him on January 2. (His crime: allegedly failing to come to a complete stop at a stop sign.) The officers asked Eckert to get out of the car. The lawsuit alleges that after he did so, the officers noted that he "appeared to be clenching his buttocks," and interpreted this as "probable cause to suspect that Eckert was hiding narcotics in his anal cavity."

By the way, Eckert was leaving a Walmart parking lot, not crossing an international border. (Luna County itself is on the border, but Deming is 45 minutes away.) Not that alleged buttocks-clenching plus border proximity should serve as probable cause, but still.

In a somewhat surprising move, the officers actually sought a search warrant before proceeding any further. Astonishingly, some judge granted it. And that is when the real nightmare began.

The officers evidently did not want to perform the search themselves, which is certainly understandable (although it strikes me that it might be a good rule to require the decisionmaker to do the search). So they took Eckert to the emergency room. The report doesn't say which one, but it was probably at Mimbres Memorial Hospital, just because a town of 14,000 probably doesn't have that many hospitals. I wanted to be sure to mention Mimbres, if it's the right place, because doctors there refused to perform this butt-clenching-prompted anal-cavity search, saying it was "unethical."

Rather than taking the hint, these officers decided to look for less ethical doctors. They carted Eckert over to the Gila Regional Medical Center (which I also wanted to mention). Now, in general, GRMC may be a very capable and generally ethical institution. This is just one incident. Certainly its website says all the right things. I noticed, though, that it also bears the slogan: "We believe that we are human beings, caring for other human beings." It is a little concerning that they haven't yet been able to confirm they are human—I mean, they are doctors—and what follows suggests they are uncertain about the second part, too. Because according to KOB's summary of the medical records Eckert released to it, here's what they did to an unconsenting patient/victim (WARNING: unpleasant even to read):

1. Eckert's abdominal area was x-rayed; no narcotics were found.

2. Doctors then performed an exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.

3. Doctors performed a second exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.

4. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.

5. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema a second time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.

6. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema a third time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.

7. Doctors then x-rayed Eckert again; no narcotics were found.

8. Doctors prepared Eckert for surgery, sedated him, and then performed a colonoscopy where a scope with a camera was inserted into Eckert's anus, rectum, colon, and large intestines. No narcotics were found.

Not much else happening on a Wednesday night, I guess. Otherwise, you'd think they'd have called it off after maybe the first four or five medical procedures produced no evidence? But some human being (or was it?) actually considered the matter at that point and said something like, "okay, the first two enemas didn't turn up anything. Let's try one more. And then maybe a colonoscopy, but then we really have to call it a night." What did they say afterward? "Sorry"?

I guess he should be thankful they didn't dissect him. I mean, they had a warrant.

But about that warrant.... It was issued in Luna County. But GRMC is in Silver City, New Mexico. Which is in Grant County. In which whoever issued this warrant has no authority. Even if they had not taken their victim across the county line, the warrant expired at 10 p.m. The records show that the colonoscopy started three hours later. Horrifying enough that they were still going hours and hours later, but they were also doing so illegally, even assuming there had been probable cause—which, remember, they derived from the clenching of buttocks by someone who rolled through a stop sign.

"This is like something out of a science-fiction film," Eckert's lawyer said. "Anal probing by government officials and public employees." Well, they believe they are human beings, at least.

You might think this story can't get any worse, but you know what? You're wrong.

According to the report, the medical center billed him for this.

Now, why was Eckert clenching his buttocks to begin with (if he really was)? I don't know. Nor do I care. It's supposed to be a free country, isn't it? We may not agree with another person's decision to clench, but we should defend to the death that person's right to do so.

This excellent pleading has been making the rounds (I saw it here) over the last couple of days, but I couldn't find a signed copy and so I haven't posted it yet because of this ridiculous issue I have with verifying information. I was able to contact the author, who told me that yes, he had actually filed it. I asked him if he'd send me a copy of the pleading as it was filed, but either he has more important things to do (like maybe actually try cases) or has had enough publicity at this point. (He seemed a little shell-shocked, actually.) But this has been covered by a sufficient number of actual news outlets at this point that it seems pretty likely to be legit, so here it is.

It was prompted by the prosecution's one-page and citation-free motion in limine asking the court to order defendant's counsel "not to refer to the Assistant District Attorney General as 'the Government' during trial." The prosecution had come to believe, apparently, that this reference was being "used in a derogatory way" and wished to put a stop to that. It provided a helpful list of references that it said it would consider acceptable, including references to the AG herself as "General R______," something that for whatever reason I particularly loathe, whether or not it's technically correct.

The defense attorney—whose last name is in fact "Justice"—responded this way on the merits:

The State of Tennessee offers precisely zero legal authority for its rather nitpicky position, and the defense can find none. The Plaintiff has failed to carry its burden on this motion. Moreover, the Plaintiff’s proposed ban on speech would violate the First Amendment.

That was probably enough to win (and he did win). But he drove the point home with the kind of thing that you probably only get away with if it's this good:

Should this Court disagree, and feel inclined to let the parties basically pick their own designations and ban words, then the defense has a few additional suggestions.... First, the Defendant no longer wants to be called "the Defendant." This rather archaic term of art obviously has a fairly negative connotation.... At trial, Mr. P. hereby demands to be addressed only by his full name, preceded by the title "Mister."

Alternatively, he may be called simply "the Citizen Accused." This latter title sounds more respectable than the criminal "Defendant." The designation "That innocent man" would also be acceptable.

Moreover, defense counsel does not wish to be referred to as a "lawyer," or a "defense attorney." Those terms are substantially more prejudicial than probative. See Tenn. R. Evid. 403. Rather, counsel for the Citizen Accused should be referred to primarily as the "Defender of the Innocent." This title seems particularly appropriate, because every Citizen Accused is presumed innocent.

Alternatively, counsel would also accept the designation "Guardian of the Realm."

Further, the Citizen Accused humbly requests an appropriate military title for his own representative, to match that of the opposing counsel. Whenever addressed by name, the name "Captain Justice" will be appropriate. While less impressive than "General," still, the more humble term seems suitable. After all, the Captain represents only a Citizen Accused, whereas the General represents an entire State.

Along these same lines, even the term "defense" does not sound very likeable. The whole idea of being defensive comes across to most people as suspicious. So to prevent the jury from being unfairly misled by this ancient English terminology, the opposition to the Plaintiff hereby names itself "the Resistance."

* * *

WHEREFORE, Captain Justice, Guardian of the Realm and Leader of the Resistance, primarily asks that the Court deny the State’s motion, as lacking legal basis. Alternatively, the Citizen Accused moves for an order in limine modifying the speech code as aforementioned, and requiring any other euphemisms and feel-good terms as the Court finds appropriate.

You don't get many chances to do this kind of thing, so it is nice to see someone hit it out of the park.